


the second hand unwinds

by HawthorneWhisperer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hiatus fic, Post-Season/Series 04, but no worse than is in canon, mentions of depression and suicide, what if the radio worked au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 20:54:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10998807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawthorneWhisperer/pseuds/HawthorneWhisperer
Summary: They’d been back in space for almost a month.  A month of Echo and Emori staring out the windows for hours, marveling at the sight of earth from above while Bellamy avoided it, because it felt like looking at a grave.  A month of Monty and Harper treating him like he was a fragile piece of glass, a month of Raven’s tight nods and blinked back tears.  A month of Bellamy wondering if he was really living this hell again, trapped in a tin can in space, all alone.A month lost in grief.Because once again, Bellamy was directly responsible for the death of a woman he loved.  Gina still haunted his dreams— now more than ever, with Echo stalking the ring like a restless panther— and his mother was back, silently accusing him of killing her from the shadows.  But Clarke stayed stubbornly away, and a sick part of him wished she’d show up.At least it would mean seeing her."Bellamy?"  Clarke’s voice crackled through his brain, husky and rough.





	the second hand unwinds

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 413, obviously. And we're just going to ignore the new ship that arrived at the end because I have no interest in speculating on a s5 plot, I just want Clarke and Bellamy talking on the radio every goddamn day for six years.

2,199

 

He made it two hours.  

The oxygen came on and Bellamy didn’t have time to grieve because they have to run diagnostics on what remained of the Ark and then there were rations to unload and systems to reboot, and finally, compartments to pick.

 There’s twelve rooms and seven people.  Seven, where there should be eight.  Monty and Harper took one room and Murphy and Emori took another.  Echo picked a room next to Murphy and Emori, and Raven grabbed the one closest to Earth Monitoring Station, which left three for Bellamy to choose from.  

 He closed the door and everything inside of him shattered.  Did Clarke hate him in her last moments, dying alone out there?  Did she understand?  Part of him thought she might, but— _together_.  That was their deal.  There was no deal for one of them surviving while the other burned up from the inside out.  He could already feel the hole inside of him that was shaped like her; like Gina, but worse.  Bellamy picked up a metal chair.  His compartment up here on Factory station had just two of them— two, for three people.  Now there was one chair, and one of him.  He hefted it in his hand, testing its weight, and threw it at the wall.  It bounced, one leg a little bent now, and he hauled off and punched the wall as hard as he could.  His teeth rattled with the impact but it wasn’t enough, so he pounded and pounded, his knuckles searing with each punch.  A scream erupted from somewhere deep inside of him and then he was crying, sinking to the floor and wondering how he could go on like this.

Raven found him like that three hours later.  Her eyes were swollen and red and he didn’t even try to hide his face from her.  One look at her and it was clear— she knew.  Had known for a while, probably.

 He wondered if Clarke knew.

He wondered if that mattered.

 

* * *

 

 2,178

 

“What are you doing?”  Bellamy asked. 

Raven shrugged.  “Fixing the radio.” 

“I thought you said contact with the bunker would be impossible for at least year,” Bellamy said and sat down next to her.  The room was empty while Emori and Echo played a game out in the hallway; some children’s game using washers from an engineering closet.  

“It’s something to do,” she said without looking up.  “Hand me that, would you?”  He handed over a pliers and watched her work for a bit, but soon she put it down and blinked.  “I miss her too,” she said, her voice cracking a little, and Bellamy felt tears welling in his own eyes.  He grabbed Raven’s hand and squeezed.

 It wasn’t better, but at least it wasn’t worse either.

 

* * *

2,169

 

They’d been back in space for almost a month.  A month of Echo and Emori staring out the windows for hours, marveling at the sight of earth from above while Bellamy avoided it, because it felt like looking at a grave.  A month of Monty and Harper treating him like he was a fragile piece of glass, a month of Raven’s tight nods and blinked back tears.  A month of Bellamy wondering if he was really living this hell again, trapped in a tin can in space, all alone.  

A month lost in grief.

Because once again, Bellamy was directly responsible for the death of a woman he loved.  Gina still haunted his dreams— now more than ever, with Echo stalking the ring like a restless panther— and his mother was back, silently accusing him of killing her from the shadows.  But Clarke stayed stubbornly away, and a sick part of him wished she’d show up.

At least it would mean seeing her.

_ Bellamy? _  Clarke’s voice crackled through his brain, husky and rough.  He sighed and stared out the window, past Raven’s still-useless radio to the irradiated husk of the earth.  Her body would have disintegrated in the wave of radiation— he wouldn’t even have bones to bury when they made it back down.

_ Raven?  Monty?  Is anyone there? _  Bellamy stared at the radio, wondering just how gone he was to be imagining her reaching out to them, but then—

  _Bellamy, please, be there, please,_ Clarke’s voice sobbed, and he sprang into action.

 It wasn’t possible.  So impossible, in fact, he was almost sure he’d lost his mind.  But he grabbed the receiver and pressed down.  “Clarke?” he asked, and his voice cracked.

“Bellamy?  You made it?”

“You’re alive?”  he asked, and there was a burst of static and he thought it was all a hallucination.  

But then she was back, her voice clear and happy but thick with tears.  “I am,” she said, and his hands were shaking, his heart racing.  “I made it back just after liftoff.  I’m in Becca’s lab— the nightblood worked, Bellamy.  I’m alive.  Are you guys okay?”

“Raven!  Monty!  Guys, get in here!” he shouted and then turned back.  “We are.  The oxygen generator worked and algae farms are up and running.  It’s weird being back here, but— god, you’re  _ alive _ ,” he said, and then the rest burst through the door and Raven screamed at the sound of Clarke’s voice.  He let her take over, and Harper hugged him and even Murphy pounded his back in celebration.

Clarke was alive.

_ Clarke was alive _ .

 

* * *

2,103

 

Bellamy talked to Clarke every day.  For the first week they all did, even Echo, and eventually Harper set up a schedule for them.  It was something to break up the monotony of space, and while Echo eventually ran out of stories about Roan losing to her during sparring matches, Bellamy couldn’t imagine ever running out of things to say.  Raven talked to her for a few hours every morning, and Monty and Harper and Murphy and Emori would trade off during the afternoons.

But after dinner, Bellamy would sit down next to the radio and talk to her for hours.  She made him tell her stupid stories about growing up on the Ark and he made her explain exactly how she survived those months in the wild.  They talked about anything and everything, but never about their last day together.

 Never about his final betrayal.

 

* * *

1,815

 

“You know what I miss about the Ark?” Clarke asked.  Her voice was a little bit hoarse— they’d been talking for four hours already— and there was a half-laugh as she continued.  “Porn.”

Bellamy snorted.  “You mean the shit on the secret server?”

“No, I mean the porn they broadcast over the main server.  Yes, I mean the secret one.”

“Raven hasn’t gotten that stuff back online yet,” he laughed.  “But I’m surprised Murphy’s let it go this long.” 

“Becca’s lab has like, five movies and no porn.  It’s boring.”

“Use your imagination, princess,” he teased.

“What the hell do you think I’ve been doing?” she growled, and he laughed out loud.

 “Want a hand?” he offered, and then his mouth went dry when she paused.

“Okay.”

Silence fell. He chuckled, dry and short, and shifted in his seat.  “Uh...I...uh...I’ve never done this.”

Clarke giggled.  “Had sex?”

He snorted.  “No.  I mean yes-- I mean, I’ve just never had...radio sex.”

“If it makes you feel better this is a first for me too.”  Silence fell again and she cleared her throat.  “If you were here...what would you— where would you start?”

“Kissing you.”  He said it without thinking but it was true.  If he was there he’d kiss her until there wasn’t any breath left in either of their lungs.  So he told her so.

The line seemed to go dead for a second.  “I’d...kiss you back.  And peel your shirt off, feel your skin under my hands.”

Bellamy closes his eyes and rests his hand with the receiver against his forehead.  “Only if your shirt is off too, princess.  I’d need to get my hands on you.  Feel those tits.”

Clarke makes a choked sound and then they’re off.  It takes some time to get comfortable, for Bellamy to stop flinching at every noise, worried Monty or one of the others would walk in.  But they find a rhythm and soon he starts spilling every filthy thing he’s ever thought about doing to her.  He’s hard as a rock and eventually he switches the radio to his left hand so he can use his right on himself, his fist tightening every time Clarke moans.  He tells her how good she tastes, how wet she is, how hard he’s going to fuck her, and she tells him she wants her mouth around his cock, heavy on her tongue.  “Fuck,” he groans, and she makes a pained laugh.  She’s using her fingers, pressing them as deep inside her as she can, begging him to fuck her harder, and then she goes silent.

He knows the moment she comes.  He can almost feel it, imagines her cunt wrapped around his cock as she comes unspooled above him.  Bellamy comes then too, groaning softly into the radio and not giving a shit that his come spurts all over the bottom of his shirt.

Clarke breathes quietly and he does too, a little stunned by what just happened.  “Thanks,” she says, her voice gentle and a little hesitant.

He forces himself to sound light.  “Any time, princess.” 

* * *

1,814

 

Raven barged into his room before he was fully awake.  “The hell is this?” he asked, sitting up blearily.

She thumped down a box of wires and scrap metal.  “You’re gonna make your own personal radio,” she announced.  “I want to build a bigger one to try and contact the bunker, and we aren’t going to be able to have you and Clarke talking for like, six hours a day anymore.” 

“You could make this in a couple hours.”

“I could,” she agreed.  “But it’s a useful skill, and we don’t have much else to do up here.  Manual’s in the box.  And Bellamy?”

“Yeah?” he said, sitting up.

“Keep that shit in here next time.”

 

* * *

1,814

 

Bellamy thought it would be awkward, talking to Clarke for the first time after what they did.  The things he said— he couldn’t unsay them.  And neither could she.

But instead of awkwardness, or shyness, he found...nothing out of the ordinary at all.  Clarke opened their daily conversation by complaining about Becca’s coffee maker, which stopped working that morning.  It was like any other day, so he took her lead.

Of course it didn’t mean anything.

 It was nothing.

* * *

1,798

 

He fucked Echo two weeks after that.

Monty’s still was back up and running, and Clarke fell asleep early because she hadn’t been sleeping well.  He was worried but not overly concerned— Clarke never slept well even when things weren’t terrible— and when Echo trailed her hand down his arm he didn’t flinch away.  It felt good to be touched, even if it wasn’t quite what he wanted.

So he followed her back to her compartment, because they were alive and young and stupid, and the person he wanted was on a different planet.

* * *

 

1,774

 

It took him three weeks to tell Clarke about Echo.  It was only once, he reasoned.  It would be weird to tell her.

 Then it was twice.

Then it became a regular thing, fucking in Echo’s compartment in the early afternoons to kill time.  There was no tenderness, no cuddling.  She was still the woman who killed Gina and the woman who’d stabbed Octavia, and some things he just couldn’t ever fully forgive.  Not with her.  He’d meant what he said to her in Becca’s lab— he didn’t trust her, even if he needed her now.

But eventually, it did feel like lying. 

Clarke was quiet for almost a full minute after he told her.  “Does she make you happy?”

Bellamy didn’t know how to answer that.  “She doesn’t make me unhappy,” he said finally.

“Then that’s good,” she said, and he could hear her smile. 

Somehow, that hurt.

 

* * *

1,581

 

It ended the day Clarke didn’t answer the radio call.

Raven hadn’t been able to raise her that morning, which happened sometimes.  Storms got in the way, or Clarke was in a different part of the lab trying to keep busy, or there was the one day she got food poisoning and couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed to answer Raven’s summons.   

But the sky was clear, and usually she radioed in by lunchtime no matter what. 

By 6pm, Bellamy was frantic and Raven wasn’t much better.  He’d given up trying to raise Clarke on his private radio and was huddled with Raven in Earth Monitoring, listening to her list the same six things they’d been trying all day.  Raven was working on a video link— had been since they found out Clarke was alive— but Becca’s system ran on totally different code than theirs and Clarke wasn’t much of a coder, even with Raven and Monty’s help.  They were only halfway to getting it established, and if it were running they’d be able to hack into it and see the lab; see if she was hurt or...worse.  

But that wasn’t an option yet, which just left them with worry.

Echo stopped and looked in.  “Did you want something to eat?” she asked, and Bellamy stared at her blankly.  He couldn’t fathom eating; not now.  He waved her off impatiently and looked back at Raven, who was now barking something into her walkie to Monty down in what remained of engineering.

 Static crackled and they both lunged forward.  “Clarke?” Raven said, grabbing the receiver first.

 “Hey,” she said quietly.  “Sorry I didn’t answer earlier.”

 “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Clarke said.

Bellamy snatched it from Raven.  “Are you hurt?  Sick?” 

“Just tired,” she said, and he and Raven exchanged a look.   _Tired?_ she mouthed, and he shook his head.  

“We’ve been worried,” he said.

“Yeah, I know.  I’m sorry,” she said listlessly.

 “You’re sorry?  You realize I was considering taking the rocket down to you,” he snapped.

 Silence went on so long he started half-considering the rocket again.  “I’m sorry,” she said in a tiny voice and his heart twisted.  

 “Clarke, what is it?” he asked. 

“I can’t do this,” she said, and she started to sob.  “It’s been so long, and there’s still so long to go, and— I’m sorry, I can’t do this.  I can’t.”

“She’s depressed,” Raven said with the transmitter on mute.  “The algae up here is engineered to have a mild antidepressant, because being trapped with so few people— we’re not meant to do it.  But all alone...I guess I’m just surprised this didn’t happen sooner.”  Bellamy could barely take anything in, because the Clarke on the other side of the radio just wasn’t Clarke.  “I think— I need Monty.  Can you…?”  Raven asked.  Bellamy nodded and she took the receiver from his hand.

“Clarke, I think I know a way I can help, but I have to go talk to Monty, okay? I’m going to leave you here with Bellamy.  I— I love you, okay?” she said, her voice wavering.  

He stayed up all night talking to Clarke, in the end.  Sometimes they didn’t talk, they just sat in silence so she wouldn’t be alone.  She told him she was going to sleep around five in the morning, and after she promised to radio in the moment she woke up, he rang off.

Echo was standing at the bay window near his compartment.  “Will she be okay?” she asked without looking at him.

“I don’t know,” he said, and tried to come up with the right thing to say.  She’d been trying to help earlier, and it was no way for him to treat his...whatever they were.  Regular sex partners, maybe.  Still, she deserved better. 

“There’s someone I care about in the bunker, you know,” she said.  Her hand came to rest on the thick glass.  “I understand.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I know.”

“I think we should— I think we should stop,” he managed.

“I know.”  She turned and gave him a half smile, rueful and understanding.  She touched his shoulder and walked past him, and he dragged himself into his compartment to collapse.

* * *

1,574

 

Bellamy spent a week on the radio with Clarke.  Raven and Monty were working on something, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about their plan because Clarke was alone, and Clarke was sad— and it was his fault.

So first thing every morning, he radioed down to her to make sure she got out of bed.  He suspected she lied sometimes when she said she’d been awake, but it was hard to tell.  She always sounded flat; bored.

And Clarke never got bored.  She was always doing something, even if it was just sketching or singing, or working on the boat she was trying to build on days when the black rain stayed a safe distance away.  He imagined her lying in the narrow cot in the corner of the lab, staring blankly at a wall whenever she responded to his questions.

He dragged his radio to the bay window so he could look out over the ground, pretending he could see her.  He stared at that bit of brown, bare land with everything he had and told Clarke story after story.  He used to do the same thing for Octavia to keep her from climbing the walls, but Clarke wasn’t seven.  Stories about princesses only did so much, and descriptions of moonrises sounded flat even to his ears.

But Clarke let him talk, and it was the only thing he could think of to do.  So from morning until late at night when his voice threatened to give out, he talked.

 

* * *

 

1,573

 

Bellamy woke up and reached for the radio but only got the beeping instead that meant she was on the main channel.  He dragged himself to Earth Monitoring and found Raven and Monty, deep in conversation with Clarke. They were making her do an inventory of chemicals in the lab, occasionally muttering to each other and adding to a pile of calculations on the board.  Harper and Murphy were watching them, and when Bellamy walked in, relieved to hear Clarke’s voice— still flat, but doing what they asked— Harper jerked her chin at him.  “I wanted to—” he started, but Harper shook her head.

“They’re busy with her right now,” she said, and walked out to the hall.  Bellamy followed them reluctantly and watched her cross her arms.  Murphy took up an identical position next to her.  “This isn’t your fault,” Harper said firmly.  Bellamy started to protest but she kept going.  “If we didn’t take off when we did, we would have missed the window for launch entirely.  There was no choice.  We couldn’t wait for her.”

 “I was the one who chose to leave her behind,” he said, sagging against the wall.  “She’s alone because of me.”

 “We’re alive because of you,” Murphy replied. 

“She’s alone because  _ she _ chose to save us,” Harper added.  “But that’s not what this is about.  You can’t— you can’t fix her.”

“I’m not trying to fix her,” he protested.

“Bellamy, I know you,” Harper said, and flipped her braid over her shoulder.  “You think this is your fault, and so you think it’s your job to fix it.  But you can’t.  Not this.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he snarled.  “She’s trapped.  Alone.  For years.  Because of me.”

 “No, I mean— her being depressed.  That’s not something you can fix.  It’s not something she can fix either, really.  It’s just...something that happens.”  Harper’s eyes darted away and Bellamy remembered the weeks after Mount Weather— she hardly left her compartment; showing up late to guard training and skipping meals. Monroe hovered around her for weeks until she started perking up, but Bellamy had been too lost inside himself to really help.  He thought then about the parties when they thought they were all going to die and Harper’s reckless energy, her laughs a little too loud to be genuine.  About how quiet she was when no one was looking.

 Bellamy turned to Murphy.  “You said…” he started, but couldn’t bring himself to finish.   _You said you almost killed yourself, and it was only three months_.  That thought had been curdling in his stomach since the moment he realized Clarke wasn’t responding, and it had haunted him ever since.  Jasper’s death hung over them all, a silent, creeping fear that no one could mention.  

Murphy sighed.  “I almost ate my gun, yeah.  But I thought I was going to be in there forever.  Clarke knows this will end— she just has to hang on until then.”

 “That’s years away,” he pointed out.

 Murphy and Harper exchanged a look.  “It is,” Murphy said, his tone about as delicate as Murphy’s ever got.  “But she’s not alone.  She’s got us, and she knows we’re coming for her.  She knows _you’re_ coming for her, because that’s what you two idiots do.  So it’s different.”

 “Monty and Raven have a plan to help her,” Harper said.  “You can be there for her, but you can’t— you can’t take this all on yourself.  It won’t help her, and it won’t help you either.”  She reached out and squeezed his forearm.  “Neither of you are alone.  I promise.”

 

* * *

1,573

 

“Okay, you’re sure it’s completely distilled?  The test strip is purple, right? Not blueish, but a real purple?  Okay, good. Then I want you to weigh out exactly 200 mgs of that powder and mix it into a glass of water,” Raven instructed to the radio.  “And I mean exactly, Clarke.  No ‘it’s 202 mgs that’s close enough.  We have to be precise.  200 exactly.”  The Ark’s lighting had switched to evening mode, their only way to keeping a regular circadian rhythm up here.  Monty tapped something out on his data pad and nodded.

“So what did I just make?” Clarke asked, her voice entirely devoid of curiosity.

 “An anti-depressant,” Raven said.

 “And you didn’t tell me this when I started why?”

 “Because you would have said you didn’t need it.”

 “I don’t.”

 “You do,” Raven said flatly.  “You’re the doctor here.  What would you say if it was one of us?”

 There was a long pause.  “I’d say it’s something that can help.”

 “Exactly.  It’s something that can help.  It won’t make it go away, but it’ll make it a little better.”

 “But I’m fine,” Clarke insisted.

 Monty took the radio from Raven.  “No, you’re not, and you’ve got us all worried sick.  This isn’t a magic fix, but...please, Clarke.  This will help.” His voice shook a little and Bellamy touched his shoulder.  He knew how much it still hurt Monty— to be up here, without Jasper.

 Bellamy’s eyebrows shot up as a terrible thought occurred to him, but Raven read his mind.  “It’s not toxic in large doses.  Even if she wanted to— and I don’t think she does— it wouldn’t hurt her,” she whispered.  Bellamy reached out and squeezed Raven’s hand and she gave him a sad smile in return.  “I know,” she said fiercely, tears welling in her eyes.  “I know.”

 Bellamy’s fingers itched for the radio.  He wanted to demand Clarke take it; shout at her until she did.  But Monty jerked back when Bellamy reached out and shook his head.  

 “Okay,” Clarke said after another long pause.  “It can’t hurt, right?”

 “That’s the spirit,” Monty said encouragingly.

 

* * *

1,468

 

It didn’t happen all at once.  But slowly, Clarke started reaching out to him in the mornings instead of waiting for him to call her, and the day she told him she started drawing again he wanted to shout with joy.

 It wasn’t perfect, but it was better.

 

* * *

1,394

 

It took Clarke close to two years to build her boat, with Emori and Echo pooling everything they’d ever learned or guessed about building one while Monty and Raven argued about fluid dynamics.  But most of the trees on the island were either charred from praimfaya or weakened from the black rain and attempt after attempt had sunk before Clarke could even get out of the shallows.

 The day she left Becca’s lab for the bunker he’d been a wreck, pacing around the ring for hours until she radioed in to tell them she was across the bay.  They’d left the rover in a cave near the beach in the hopes it would be protected from praimfaya and for once in their lives, luck was on their side.  Clarke rolled it out to charge and promised him she’d find Octavia as soon as she could.

But the bunker was impassable and for once, they both crumpled.  He could almost see her, crying on a heap of rubble.  Octavia and her mother and Kane were all behind it, maybe alive or maybe dead.  They had no way of knowing.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered over the radio, and tears streamed down his face as he sat by the window, looking down on the charred planet.  “I can’t get to them.”

 “I know,” he said brokenly, because that was all there was to say.

 

* * *

1,385

 

She found Madi almost a week after that.  “She survived for  _ two years, _ Bellamy,” Clarke had said over and over.  “She was  _ six _ .  Six years old, and she survived.  On her own.”  Their hopes rose at that— the thought of other survivors— but even as Clarke and Madi traveled around the rest of the habitable zone, they found no other signs.  It was just the two of them, too stubborn to die.

But at least neither of them was alone anymore.

 

* * *

1,231

 

Clarke had decreed that Madi was to have lessons every day, so Harper drew up a schedule.  Every morning one of them would sit in Earth Monitoring Station with the radio and talk to Madi, gently guiding her through whatever subject they knew best.  Bellamy started with the Ancient Greeks and while it hurt to hear her asking questions in the same fierce way O used to, it was good too.  He might not be able to save his sister but he could help this little girl, and so he did.  Emori pitched in with Grounder history too, her life as a nomad making her an expert on all the now-dead clans.  Raven immediately set Madi to a project of building a component for the video link, and Monty quizzed her on photosynthesis.  Echo was surprisingly good at math and even more surprisingly patient with Madi, walking her through everything from addition to long division without ever losing her temper.

Murphy surprised them all the day he sat down, picked up the receiver, and started reciting. 

“ What was he doing, the great god Pan,   
Down in the reeds by the river?   
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,   
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,   
And breaking the golden lilies afloat   
With the dragon-fly on the river.   
  
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,   
From the deep cool bed of the river:   
The limpid water turbidly ran,   
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,   
And the dragon-fly had fled away,   
Ere he brought it out of the river.   
  
High on the shore sat the great god Pan   
While turbidly flowed the river;   
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,   
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,   
Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed   
To prove it fresh from the river.

 “Now, Bellamy’s clearly covered Greek gods for you pretty well.  What do you think Pan represents in this poem?” Murphy asked, determinedly not looking up.

Raven bugged her eyes out at Bellamy and he stared back.  “What the fuck was that?” she mouthed at him and he just shook his head blankly.  But Madi made a guess, and from then on Murphy taught her literature every Friday. 

Harper decided on music and for two hours every Thursday, Clarke would whine quietly to Bellamy over the private radio channel about the incessant drumming those lessons created.  “She’s probably good but it’s giving me a headache,” she groaned.

A smile flickered around Bellamy’s lips.  “Did I ever tell you about the time Octavia decided to learn to whistle?  I must have spent a solid week avoiding the compartment.”  Clarke’s laugh echoed back to him and his chest felt like it was caving in.

 All he wanted was to be there with her.

 

* * *

 1,160

 

Clarke and Madi settled into a routine.  Every six weeks they made a circuit of the habitable zone, stopping first at the bunker to shift some rubble and check for signs of life.  It didn’t get any easier each time she visited, but she wasn’t giving up hope and so neither would he.  Then they’d spend two weeks skirting the edge of the Dead Zone, hunting as sparingly as possible to give the animal populations a chance to rebound.  They would cut through old Azgeda territory after that and search for any signs of life, scavenging through rubble for anything that had survived the second apocalypse.  Then it was back across the bay to Becca’s lab where they’d spend a week reveling in hot showers and a soft bed before heading back out to the bunker.

 And every day, they talked.

 

* * *

1,027

 

One night he and Monty got drunk and had sex.  Monty had broken up with Harper almost a year before— over nothing, really, because  _ nothing _ dominated their lives now— and they were both lonely.  It was, in a word, terrible.

 Well, the sex itself was all right.  But it was Monty, and he was Bellamy, and while they ended up sleeping in each other’s arms that night because they were both too drunk to do anything else, Monty had a look of discomfort on his face the next morning that Bellamy knew was mirrored on his own.  They got dressed and left Bellamy’s compartment, only to run into Echo leaving Harper’s at the exact same time.

 The four of them stood there, horrified, until Emori and Raven came around the corner and burst into giggles.  That broke the tension and soon all six of them were sitting on the floor, wiping tears of laughter from their eyes until Murphy came and scowled at them.

 He told Clarke the story that night after Madi had gone to bed, and she laughed almost as hard.

 

 

* * *

966

 

The day Raven and Madi got the video link with Clarke working was the best day he’d ever had in space.  One minute he was looking at a black screen and then her face filled it, her smile lighting up the room.  Raven cheered and high fived Monty, but Bellamy couldn’t tear his gaze away.

She was paler than he’d ever seen her, even during their first days on the ground.  Her hair was back in a braid again, and there were dark shadows under her eyes that worried him.  Clarke seemed to be studying him too, her bright blue eyes raking across his face like she was cataloguing everything.  Madi was next to her but Bellamy could barely spare the child a glance, too wrapped up in seeing Clarke  _ alive _ .

 She reached out and touched the screen in front of her, like she could reach through and touch his face with her fingertips.

 God, he wished she could.

 

* * *

858

 

The hopelessness hit him all at once.  One moment he was going about his usual routine— running laps around the hallways, doing pull ups on the door frame, and then getting ready to call Clarke and teach Madi— and the next it was like it took too much energy to even stand up.

 They’re still so far away from the ground.  Too many more months of the same six people, of talking to Clarke and not being able to touch her,  of worry that something will happen to her or Madi and it will be his fault they're alone.

 He crumples.

* * *

854

 

This time, it’s Clarke who spends hours talking to him.  She draws pictures, asks him questions about his mother until she can sketch her perfectly.  Madi chimes in too, inventing stories for him that always seemed to end with her riding off into the sunset on a dragon.  Clarke listens to them with a gentle smile and after Madi goes to sleep she stays up with him just so he isn’t alone.

She talks, she listens, and eventually, it helps. 

 

* * *

801

 

“This movie is terrible,” Clarke said.  She was laying in her bed, the videolink with Bellamy propped near her pillow while she watched a movie from the Ark mainframe on her other datapad.

 “You were the one who picked it,” he pointed out.  He was watching the same one, some thriller that Clarke had picked despite having watched it at least half a dozen times since the videolinks went live.  Madi had been asleep for two hours in a distant part of the lab, worn out from the fighting exercises Clarke and Echo insisted on teaching her just in case.

 “That’s because you wanted to watch a movie with me, and it’d be weird it watch what I was going to watch with an audience.”

 Bellamy shifted on his bed.  “I don’t see how watching any other terrible movie would be any weirder.”

 “That’s because I was going to watch porn,” she deadpanned, and Bellamy laughed.  “What?” she groused.  “You at least have people to hook up with if you’re getting desperate.  This is all I’ve got.”

 They’d never really talked about that night all those years ago.  It was their unspoken secret, an aberration to their friendship.  But he’d had a little of Monty’s moonshine and was feeling brave.  “You’ve got me,” he said, and fought the urge to look away.

 Clarke’s eyes went a little wide and she got up.  He watched her walk across the office and flip the lock on the door, just in case.  She moved the videoscreen a little farther away and then sat down and swallowed hard.  She was giving him a better view, he realized, and wanted to pass out.  

 He kept his eyes trained on her.  “Why don’t you get comfortable,” he said, pitching his voice low.

 Clarke’s eyes fluttered closed and her hands curled into fists.  “You too,” she whispered.  Bellamy sat up and took his shirt off, and then after a moment’s consideration he shucked his pants too.  He laid back down, his back propped up against the wall and the video screen balanced off to his right.  Clarke was down to her bra and panties, her body lean and scarred from years of survival.  There was a long, narrow scar across her stomach— it had been a shallow wound but bled so much Madi had called for help— and he longed to kiss it.

 “Stay where you are,” he said, and his throat felt thick.  “I want to kneel.  Right there, between your legs.”

 Clarke’s tongue ran across her lips and her knees drifted open.  “Yeah?”

 “I want to kiss you.  Right there, just above your clavicle.”  Her hand moved to touch her neck almost unconsciously.  “Yeah, there.  And then down, and then down again.”  He tipped his chin towards the screen.  “But your bra is between my teeth and your nipple.”

 Clarke shuddered and pushed the cup aside, baring her left breast.  Her nipple was hard and she teased it with one finger, her eyes glued to him.  “There it is.  I’d bite it, just hard enough for you to get a little wetter.”  She pinched it and moaned and he could die right there and have no regrets.  “Take it off,” he growled, and she shrugged out of her bra.  Her hands went back to her tits of her own accord, her lower lip pinned between her teeth.

 Bellamy snaked his hand down his underwear but she clucked her tongue.  “Wait for my turn,” she scolded, and Bellamy didn’t think it was possible to get any harder, but it was.

 He nodded and reluctantly let himself go.  “I’d kiss that scar,” he explained, “just once.  And then your hip.  You can feel me near your cunt but I’m not touching you there, not yet.”  Clarke leaned back a little and her legs widened even further.  The screen was just below her and the connection was fuzzy but he swore he could see her panties getting darker.  “I’d kiss the hemline of your panties,” he instructed, and she feathered a hand across her waistband and then down, touching herself through the cotton.

 “That’s my tongue,” he explained, and Clarke gasped as if it really was him.  As if he was there with her, his tongue rasping across the fabric as he inhaled her scent.  She pressed harder and he smirked.  “You like friction?” he asked, and she nodded.  “Then give yourself a little more, but not too much, not yet.”

 Clarke opened one eye in a glare that didn’t hold much heat.  She smiled and he grinned back before letting the mask fall back in place.  “That’s it,” he urged her.  “Like that.”  She was rubbing her clit in tight circles through the cotton, the dark spot between her legs growing with every second.  “You’re so wet,” he groaned, and she nodded.

 “So wet,” she agreed.  “Will you—”

 “Take those off for me,” he said, and Clarke eagerly stripped them down her legs and sat back down, her cunt centered on the screen.

It was too much.  He palmed himself through his underwear too, the rough fabric rubbing against his cock just right.  “I’d spread you open and lick your cunt,” he said, and Clarke dropped her head back as her fingers did what he described, moving from her clit to her entrance and back, finally rubbing her clit in furious circles until her thighs started to tremble and she came with a wordless cry.

She flopped back on the bed for a moment and then sat up, leaning towards the screen with a predatory grin.  She watched him palm himself for a few strokes and then lifted an eyebrow.  “My turn,” she purred.

 

* * *

797

 

It was just sex, he reasoned.  Like with Echo, or Monty.

Except it wasn’t, because it was  _ Clarke _ .  Clarke, who keened his name when she came.  Clarke, whose cunt he now knew intimately, or as intimately as he could through a screen.  Clarke, who fucked herself on her fingers while he told her exactly what to do, his own hand working his cock frantically.

He knew what her tits looked like too, with her fingers pinching her nipples desperately and her back arching and bowing off her bed.  And she knew him in the same way, having watched him come with heavy-lidded eyes and her lips just slightly open six times in the last four days.

And even though he’d spent hours every day for three straight years talking to her, he couldn’t broach the subject.  He could tell her all the filthy things he wanted to do to her and watch her do them, but he couldn’t tell her what it meant.

 It was just...live action porn.

 With feelings.

 

* * *

729

 

The day the countdown shows less than one year to go, it’s like a weight is lifted from Bellamy’s shoulders.

 

The worst of the waiting is over.  A year feels like nothing compared to what they’ve gone through, and Clarke seems to feel the same.  They start talking about being reunited, tentatively letting themselves hope that the future is within their grasp.  

 

The others at the bunker do the same, and together Raven and Monty start building a more exact model of the receding radiation, trying to pinpoint the best spot for a new beginning.

 

* * *

723

 

The day Raven and Monty tell them it will take another year to fix the rocket for landing is the third worst day he’s ever had in space.  He can’t even bring himself to talk to Clarke, just stares blankly out the window and wonders if this is his punishment for all of his sins.

It probably is.

 

* * *

582

 

It’s hard, that year.  Harder than almost any of the others.  They bicker sometimes, and tensions on the ring are high.  Everyone wanted to go home, get out of this hell, and now they’re trapped.  They soldier on with busy work and lessons for Madi, but it feels hopeless.

It probably is.

 

* * *

371

And then one day, Clarke doesn’t get out of bed.  It’s not like before, and it’s not radiation poisoning either.

It’s the flu.

 She insists that it’s nothing serious, but her fever keeps spiking and she’s too weak to do much more than get up and scrounge up some MRE’s from the bottom of her stores.  She won’t let Madi take care of her, worried she’s contagious, and barricades herself in Becca’s office until she’s better.  She doesn’t finish the meal Bellamy coaxes her into heating up and she falls asleep while he’s talking.

She snores. 

It’s adorable but heartbreaking, and not for the first time Bellamy reaches out and touches the screen, right where her hair is drifting over her face. “I’m sorry,” he says, words he’s wanted to say for over a thousand days now.  “I should have waited for you.  I should have stayed.  Or gone to the antenna.  You’re there because of me, and I—” he stops as she rolls over, but soon her snores pick back up.

 “I love you,” he admits.

 Hundreds of miles away, Clarke slumbers on.

 

* * *

219

 

This time, none of them do a countdown to getting back to earth.  There are no milestone parties, no “less than three hundred days to go!” cheers.  They’re all scared, too worried that this will be taken away from them too.  But he knows they’re all silently praying, counting down the days until their sentence is lifted.

He hopes this time, it's for real.

 

* * *

 

45

 

“Have you guys seen any storms headed my way?” Clarke asked. 

Raven poked her head out from where she was digging around in an old computer, stripping it for anything they could use upon their return.  “Looks clear for another week.  You ready?” 

Bellamy curled his hands into fists at the reminder that in three days, Raven had to take apart the videolink.  They needed the wiring for the rocket and they left it as long as they could, but she had systems to repair and that meant wires.

But it meant going back to radio contact.  No videolink, no more nights spent watching stupid movies and laughing. 

No more nights spent watching her touch herself either, but there was a part of him that was almost relieved that was over.  Because as the reality of the ground grew closer it got harder and harder for him to sort out what he felt and why.

 He loved Clarke.  That much was clear.  He loved her and he wanted her to be happy, but he didn’t know how she felt about him, and each time they talked each other through what they wanted it made it harder for him.  If she didn’t want anything more, he’d respect that.

 But god, he wanted her.

 

* * *

0

 

It was both better and worse than the first landing.  Raven was a good pilot, and Bellamy knew what awaited them on the ground.

 But knowing who was waiting on the ground meant that this time, he cared if they died.

The parachutes deployed and Monty gave a tiny, triumphant squawk, and they hit the earth with a bone-jarring crunch.  

Echo was the first off the ship, followed by Emori.  Bellamy was third, and he barely had time to register the green of the trees and blue of the sky before them when a blur of blonde wrapped herself around him.

He had pictured this moment every day for over six years, but it couldn’t measure up.  Clarke’s body slammed into his and his arms locked around her, his face buried in her hair.  She smelled like pine trees and spring rain, and her heart pounded against his chest.  He could feel tears dampening his shirt and his own were dripping into her hair.  He was probably holding her too tightly, but she was squeezing him like she would never let go and they swayed on the spot.

 Madi was hugging Raven and Monty and even Murphy, (who had sworn him to secrecy about the fact that he’d run out of poems for her to analyze two years ago and had been writing his own for her ever since) and then she came running up to Bellamy like she'd known him for years.

She had, in a way, but it still felt new.  Good, but new.

It was sunny, just like the first day they landed.  But storm clouds were building on the horizon and it was most of a day’s walk back to the where they were going to start digging out the bunker, so eventually they had to pack what they brought down back into the rover for Raven to drive and start hiking back.

 Clarke found him as they left the ship behind and tangled her fingers with his.  He smiled— if he could say that, since he hadn’t stop smiling since they landed— and pulled her against him, brushing a kiss to the top of her head.  She slowed and they dropped back from the group just as the clouds opened up and rain began to patter down.  

 Bellamy stopped and lifted his face, letting the rain splatter against his skin.  He looked down to find her watching him with a gentle smile.  “I want you to know— I don’t blame you,” she said.  “I know you blame yourself for leaving me behind, but I got back too late.  It had to be done, okay?”

 His throat closed up and he shook his head.  “I left you behind,” he said, words that were six years too late.  “I shouldn’t have done that.”

 “Yes, you should have.  But if you need forgiveness, I’ll give that to you because Bellamy, I love you too.”  He blinked and she smiled again.  “I heard you.  And I— I loved you then, but I didn’t want to say it because I wanted it say it like this.  With you here, in front of me, so I could do this.”  Clarke leaned forward and kissed him, softly at first and then deeper.  Around them the rain poured down, washing away their sins, and he cupped her face in his hands to drink her in.

 

Because now they had all the time in the world.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (No I did not write this in one night-- I read the spoiler pages and just had to make some tweaks.)
> 
> Poem is by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, title is from Time After Time by the impeccable Cyndi Lauper.


End file.
